like two trapeze swingers

please remember me, happily/by the rose bush laughing/with bruises on my chin, the time when/we counted every black car passing/your house beneath the hill and up until/ someone caught us in the kitchen/with maps, a mountain range, a piggy bank/a vision too removed to mention

We get up early in the morning. The four of us are usually up and at 'em by 8am. Probably because we turn into pumpkins after dark so we go to bed on the earlier side. My 3 roommates like to run in the morning, and i've never been running's #1 fan. So, i tend to stretch on our balcony with Iron&Wine on repeat, and at that hour, when it's perfectly cool and breezy it's pretty close to heaven.

Today we took a tour of the AMPATH hospital. Assuming you all did your homework and cruised the website I won't bore you with repeating their programs, but it's a well-oiled organization and we're in it here. They have a handful of initiatives and programs for their HIV/AIDS clients, one of which is the FPI, or family preservation initiative, which operates under the notion that even if you give patients ARVs if they have inadequate nutrition or extreme poverty, their condition will not improve. (as public health students, we like this) So, there is a farm on site where produce is sold (income-generator) and given to "food-insecure" patients with a prescription from a nutritionist for up to 6 months. Currently though a change is happening where the healthier clients will work on the farm to generate an income while also providing food for their less-healthy counterparts. there is also a passion fruit juice factory. and they are currently grafting the "purple passion" and the "yellow passion" to make "an even sweeter passion" (the jolly Kenyan man was very enthusiastic about his job)

a kenyan woman distributing maize brought in once a month by the WFP

us on our farm tour

The partnership between IU-Kenya-Moi-USAID-PEPFAR etc, etc is intense and AMPATH is essentially a symbolic acronym for the collaboration that operates under the Kenyan Ministry of Health. Also, technology is cutting edge around here. Google was in town last week because they will (eventually) provide phones with GPS and data collection software that can be formatted accordingly, so trained counselors can go door-to-door in the 3 million people catchment AMPATH area of Western Kenya and test people for malaria, TB, HIV all within their homes and rural villages (!!!) This weekend there is a "launch party" in a village where people come out to play and listen to talks and sing--all done to ultimately gain enthusiasm for a program beginning in a new area. it's pretty exciting. and that's a fragment of what we learned. all before noon.

i walked into town in search of (room temperature) milk and it never ceases to surprise me how handicapped individuals operate in developing countries. i passed a woman on her hands and knees using two pairs of flip flops (one for her hands and one for her knees) because her lower legs were deformed. another man cruised by me on his knees because he didn't have lower legs. either we provide surgery in the U.S. or they are hidden from my view, but i haven't seen anything like it in a long while. a girl on our program wants to do her culminating experience on handicap-access in kenya. needless to say, it is few and far between.

and it would be nice if the powers that be could give haiti a break. that news is so sad.

tonight us, and the other few dozen of mzungus on this compound, are going out to an indian dinner. AND i got the seat lowered a bit on my hip new bicycle, so tomorrow i will take her for an early morning cruise.

OH! and our address here is: Lauren Welch
c/o Indiana University/George Washington Univ
PO Box 4806-30100
Eldoret, KENYA
[obviously packages, letters, postcards, etc would be greatly appreciated. we will just all have to hope it gets here by May]

so alivia taylor can see how cool i look with my neon backpack on a daily basis